Chambers's Journal of Popular Literature, Science, and Art, Fifth Series, No. 111, Vol. III, February 13, 1886

Synopsis

All the world has shrunk since the Golden Age of our childhood. Time was longer, and people were taller then. A wet day was the depth of despair and the end of all things; the hours also were longer, and a year from January to December lapsed slowly by, like the prehistoric ages. The future seemed to be bringing a measureless succession of such years until the gigantic height of grown-up people would be reached; but life was so long, it was hardly worth while to think about the mystery of growing to their height at last.

Our old home has shrunk since those days; the rooms are smaller and darker; the streets, once familiar, would be narrower if we could see them now; the garden has shrunk too; the trees have been growing down; and the church spire is stumpy, as if Time had pushed its top lower, like a shutting telescope. Beyond the home circle who were part of our existence, the grown-up people of the Golden Age were a mysterious race.

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